New Zealander Who Made Horror Pay

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 243, 18 February 1944, Page 19

New Zealander Who Made Horror Pay

HE NAME of Rupert Julian, whose death was announced the other day, would probably mean little to the present generation of talkie-goers, but it should mean a good deal to those who were "going to the pictures" when they were silent 20 years or so ago. It should certainly mean something to New Zealanders, for Rupert Julian was one of the very few people from this country who ever made a big name in Hollywood. He was born in Auckland in 1889, and after education at Marist College, went on the stage at the age of 16. After working his way up the theatrical ladder in Australia, South Africa and other countries, he arrived in Hollywood with his wife (who had been Elsie Wilson, an actress), where he worked as actor, scenarist, and director. He has a sister, Mrs. Wyn Scammell, living in Wellington. It was as a director that Julian won his biggest fame. He was for some years one of the most important men making films for the Universal studios. His name is especially associated with The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin-the 1918 equivalent of the recent Hitler, the Beast of Berlin-in which he played the role of the bestial Kaiser, besides directing the picture; but his most notable successes as a director were Merry-Go-Round (1923), with Norman Kerry and Mary Philbin; and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), the Lon Chaney film which is regarded as a milestone in the film industry because it first made "horror" a profitable commodity on a big scale and so paved the way for the Boris Karloffs and Bela Lugosis of the present and gave education boards and juvenile welfare societies something extra to pass resolutions about. Other Julian-directed films were Three Faces East, Breathes There A Man, Love Comes Along, and The Cat Creeps (horror again). Our photograph of him is from the 1918 era.